Page 10 of Smoke

“No!” I croaked. “Dawson, no!” I put my palms flat on the floor and tried to push myself up, forgetting about my forearm. Screaming in pain, I struggled to get up.

Kay placed her hand on my back and tried to keep me down.

“No, Kay. Dawson’s going to kill her!”

She was back in my face talking to me, but I still couldn’t hear her. I realized it was actually hard to see her too. Wiping my face with my good arm, I drew my hand back to see it covered in blood. She grabbed my hand and pinned it on the floor too, before looking over her shoulder and talking to someone.

Suddenly Dawson was there on his knees beside me. His big hands replaced Kay’s and he was trying to talk to me. What was he saying? The ringing in my ears was growing louder.

Everything hurt so bad. I rested my head on the cool floor, appreciating that it helped with the pain a bit. Closing my eyes, I gave into unconsciousness.

Chapter Four

Smoke

Wrapping my fingers around the neck of the deadbeat mother in front of me did nothing to ease the waves of anger rising inside of me. Choking her would be too quick of a death. I wanted her to fucking suffer. She’d hurt my baby—my fucking baby—and that wasn’t acceptable.

“Smoke, let her go. Ashley needs you,” Bash said from beside me.

“She’ll never hurt her again,” I said through my clenched teeth.

Diamond, Ash’s mother, clawed at my fingers. I got far too much satisfaction in seeing the panic in her eyes. Panic like she’d caused my baby to feel.

“Smoke, if you kill her like this, you can’t help Ashley. Think about it, man. You’re the only constant she has in her life,” Bash reasoned.

Fuck, he was right. No matter how badly I wanted to be the last thing Diamond saw when she took her last undeserving breath, I couldn’t do it like this.

“Go get your girl. I’ll take over,” Bash said.

I released her neck but not before slamming her head into the wall. “This isn’t over,” I spat.

Letting Bash take over, I turned and dropped to my knees by Ash.

“Hey, baby. I’m here. I’m here. Everything is okay,” I soothed.

“I came in on the tail end of her being hit with one of those metal chairs,” Kay said. I’d asked Bash to call her, hoping she’d be able to beat us to Rolling in Dough since she lived on the same side of town.

“I’m going to fucking kill her,” I promised Kay, before turning my attention back to Ashley. “Baby, can you hear me?”

Her eyes lifted to mine before she rested her head back on the floor.

“Fuck, she just passed out!” I yelled. “Someone call 911!” Checking her for injuries was almost impossible due to her position.

“The police are coming and so are the medics!” another employee yelled as they rushed forward with a first-aid kit. They tossed the kit on the floor, opened a small packet, and stuck it under her nose.

Ashley groaned as she came to. Thank fuck.

“Smelling salts,” the woman said before sitting on her ass on the other side of Ashley.

“I want to get up,” Ashley said, moving a bit.

“Hey, baby, stay still for us, okay?”

“Yeah, you don’t want to move too much, okay? We need to see how hurt you are first. Let’s think about something happy,” the woman said.

“Happy?” Ashley echoed, trying to rub one of her ears. “Loud,” she said.

“Yeah, like what you’re going to do when you get back home. Do you have any hobbies you like?”

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